On Mar 20, 17:02, Max Eskin wrote:
> Subject: Time/Date stamper
> I recently picked up a time/date stamper from the trash. It is a
> box with a slot, and when a paper is inserted, the paper is stamped.
> The first year on the stamping drum is 1951, so I assume that's when
> it was made. It uses a cloth ribbon for ink. How do I reink it?
The stuff that's used to re-ink dot-matrix printer ribbons will probably do.
What colour was the original? A lot of these used blue. If you have a good
stationary supplier nearby, the stuff to ask for is "endorsing ink" which is
what's used to re-ink endorsing-stamp (rubber-stamp) pads.
Or use WD-40 to extract whatever life is left in the original, if it's dried up
rather than exhausted. But go easy, don't add too much, and let it soak in for
a while.
> Also, the stamping has impressed the numbers into the rubber platen. How
> do I get rid of that?
When I ran litho printing presses (in a former life) we used a solvent called
MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) to undo "blanket smashes" -- dents in the rubber
offset blanket caused by crumpled paper under high pressure. It's also used to
give the blanket an occasional extra-good clean. MEK is also used in the
plastics industry as a solvent and to glue PVC and ABS. It shouldn't be too
hard to find. Caution: it's very inflammable, it dissolves or at least attacks
several types of plastic, removes ink as soon as you look at it, and also
removes the natural oils from your skin, so don't wash you hands in it :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Fri Mar 20 1998 - 20:21:09 GMT